Pivot + Seekae

It goes without saying that we here at Music Feeds have quite the hard on for Pivot. So, when we heard that they were packing up and heading back to the UK to record their next album, things in the office got a bit lairy.

However after my boss finished blasting me with the fire extinguisher and I stopped biting the delivery boys ankle, he told me, and I quote, “never fear young Mikey, for you shall have one last chance to see the three men of p, and there’s more. They will be playing the Hoey with Seekae supporting no less.” Ignoring his unaccountable and spontaneous British accent I proceeded to mess myself, but not before securing a ticket.

Anyway let me first say that if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of seeing Seekae live you haven’t lived. They started up with Ghoul’s Ivan Vinztin joining them on stage adding a little guitar to the mix as well as lending his lip whetting voice to the already unbearably blissful racket that Seekae, sans beat meister George Nicholas, were churning out. The band made great use of their wide range of synths, drum machines and samplers, jumping from instrument to instrument with Alex Cameron even jumping on the drums every now and again, showing he can do much more than press buttons.

Ivan and the boys rendition of Void from Seekae’s debut EP The Sound Of Trees Falling On People was a particularly standout moment of the night, while the albums opener Yurai, being played for the first time live was something very special.

Anyway Seekae finished and we all staggered back out into Bourke St. in an effort to offset the effect of the Hoey’s permanently stifling temperatures on our weak and feeble minds and bodies, only to jam ourselves back in for Pivot.

Drummer Laurence Pike had worriedly told me they were going to be playing a few new songs, adding that he thinks a lot of their fans are going to hate them for the new album, but let me just say the new material I heard that night was fantastic, and that’s without Pivot’s painstaking attention to detail, working their songs over again and again while recording.

They opened with Epsilon from their last album O Soundtrack My Heart and from the very first note violined out of Richard Pike’s guitar we all knew we were in for something special. The band delighted us with a series of favourites from O Soundtrack including singles In the Blood and O Soundtrack My Heart, along with fan favourites such as Sing You Sinners and Didn’t I Furious.

Laptop wizard Dave Miller was as usual the bedrock this towering band is built on, forming a solid base of samples, effects and loops from which the shaky and slender spires of the Pike brothers’ respective drumming and guitar work were able to extend themselves.

Speaking of the Pike brothers, I believe their DNA should be preserved so that we can engineer a race of superhumans, the Pikemen if you will. Laurence went at his drums like a sadist who’d been kept in a cage for a few years. Arms akimbo, he splashed his percussive glory all across his kit in his usual sporadic and spasmodic way, while Richard, feet dancing across his absurd arrangement of effects pedals, noodled away at his guitar as only he can.

For the encore they played a new track which sees the band take a much more lyric centred approach, with Richard singing and playing synth that was, while admittedly not exactly my thing, elegant and beautiful in the subtle chaos Dave and Laurence built around it.

That wasn’t all they had for us though, finishing on Sweet Memory, whose jangly guitar lines where unfortunately dulled by their bass amp breaking, in a repeat of the similarly sweaty and frustrating situation they faced at Laneway earlier this year.

Pivot make me proud to be Australian, showing the world we have more to offer than Shannon Noll or Slim Dusty. Now if only the retarded and incestuous label talent scouts would be so courageous instead of hiding behind the wall of shit they call local artists.

More Pivot less Kisschassy.

Photos By Kurt Davies